KHIO: The Once Joy
by NexusOscura
Summary: With her world overtaken by Darkness, a young Minnesota girl finds herself landing in a lake in prairie on a world far from home. There, she is found by a being of nothingness, who assigns a woman of even purer Darkness than the Heartless to take her on a journey to restore the girl's world before the resurgence of the Heartless comes to pass.


**AN: Before we begin, let me put this aside; first story here, I would like some suggestions on new Heartless as I progress through this and you may feel a bit lost in this chapter. That's okay, many bits and pieces are still coming to form, though the general idea is already complete, it's the story that needs to be written and there are a lot of mysteries I would like you all to guess.**

 **other than that, Kingdom Hearts, Inside Out and their characters belong to Square Enix and Disney Pixar, respectively.**

 **EnJoy.**

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World: City of Lights and Emotions

Her heart was racing, her eyes wide enough to block the rest of her face. Her legs burned from having run from the shifting shadows that rushed at her relentlessly. The loosely hanging shreds of her shirt swung to and fro with every panicked step she took up the inclined street to her house, which was the only haven in her mind to hide from these ink black creatures. Behind her, the world seemed to burn in purple, red and black flames that left absolutely nothing it their wake, stopping half a block around the blue abode and revealing a magenta void underneath the asphalt.

The moment she reached her house, she tackled the door open, and then slammed it shut with enough force to jam it in, thinking that that would keep the creatures out as she went to look for her parents. She ran upstairs, first to the master bedroom, finding it devoid of life and the furniture that was there every day, instead finding twisted, corrupted versions of them, then to the bathroom, finding the darkened and decaying walls and tiles frightening and life-draining, and the absence of life beyond worrying. She looked down, towards the jammed door, and quickly wondered if her parents were even home when the end began.

Without warning and sound, the shadows around her reached out into the dying world and took bulbous, ant-like forms, their skin the darkest black in existence and their eyes bright, yellow dots that seem to illuminate everything within inches from them save for their light-absorbing flesh. The girl let out a shriek of pure terror as she found herself utterly surrounded by what may be her end. She took a look around, trying in vain to find an escape route, silently praying to whatever god or kind spirit may hear her for salvation and hoping that the whole thing was just a terrible nightmare from the farthest depths of her subconscious. But she stood within am impenetrable wall of dark creatures, there were no god nor spirit left in the swallowed world and she was as awake as ever when her heart and body were engulfed by a bright light and thrown away as the last act of her world's heart.

\- 3-

World: Planet of Chaotic Wonders

The night was specially cold and dreary in the Fields of Sradrume, where the Sradrume Lake lay quiet reflecting the starry sky as a single star suddenly and silently goes out, the only observer sitting on a large, nearby boulder, drinking tea of unknown design as she witnessed all. Her eyes never wavering as she stared at the now dark spot in the endless spectrum of the night, looking for any rhyme or reason for the sudden disappearance of a star so young and filled with gaseous life. Never resting, she took another sip of her warm drink and patiently waited for the arrival of the answer, which, surprisingly, came in the form of several thousand meteorites appearing out of nowhere, spreading themselves far and wide.

The woman, grateful for the mysterious answer of the world, jumped off of the boulder and landed by the lakeside, where one of the meteorites was heading. She reached into her dark cloak, searching for an item that allowed her to contact her only friend, and flicked it on, emitting a signal detectable only by the device's twin. As soon as the device is dropped back into the pocket, she heard the water nearby break and rise from the force of a small, yet fast meteorite, the splash nearly reaching her. She stared at the water with mild interest and lifted her right hand, thumb and middle finger pressed into each other, and snapped loudly into the silent night.

At first, nothing around her changed; for two full minutes she waited with the only shift in the area being the placement of the clouds and their density, but just before the third minute arrived, three figures, two ambiguous and one clearly female, rushed out of the lake at speeds defying their very forms. The three figures landed in front of the Cloaked Woman as smoothly as the terrain behind her, the two androgynous, slim, gray and white ones carrying an unconscious girl dressed in a ripped yellow shirt under a shredded black vest, her faded blue jeans barely intact, assuming she liked to have them ripped by the knee, which was unlikely, given her colorful attire. Her right shoe had presumably fallen into the depths of the lake, forever lost in its blue darkness along with some strands of her golden hair.

The two hollow figures carrying her gently placed her on the grass by the boulder, where they, with their bound fingers, examined her form for any damages unseen by their skillful, nonexistent eyes. They checked her mouth, which hid some well-kept, yet gapped teeth, then her blue eyes, using a flashlight provided by their cloaked leader to get a reaction, before moving on to the rest of her form with care that they shouldn't yet exhibit. Searching underneath the tattered clothes, the two gray creatures found small scratches around her ribs and chest, consistent with the tree clawed Shadows they've fought against once before, and one long gash running from her left knee to her ankle, the source of which they couldn't figure out. Resigning from their task, the creatures stepped back and unzipped their masks, revealing blackish-gray heads underneath their whitish-gray jumpsuit-like bodies.

"She's hurt, my Liege," the one to the right spoke in a hollow, echoing tone.

"But she will survive, if you treat her now," the one to the left continued in the exact same voice, empty and truly devoid of concern despite the words said. The Cloaked Woman looked at the body, at the girl's slowly expanding and deflating chest, at her relaxed, yet frightened face, and, finally, at her heart. Using the same Darkness that once consumed her, the Cloaked Woman opened a one-way portal to view at the girl's soul and saw a red, crystalline heart emitting light pulses at the same relaxed rate as her physical one beat, small, scarce fractures slowly healing as Darkness pours from within at incredibly small amounts.

"That will be all, Dusks," the Cloaked Woman said, dismissing her hollow servants in empty satisfaction as she thought of a spell that may work here, but came up with nothing. The Dusks, exchanging empty glances with one another, jumped into the air and vanished in black portals surrounded by white, jagged tendrils, leaving the Cloaked Woman to her silent musings. She took a few steps toward the sleeping child, regarding her with care and near hollow worry as a strange, key-shaped weapon flew straight to her head.

Without even looking, the Cloaked Woman grabbed the Keyblade by the teeth, drawing blood but otherwise preventing any damage threatening her nonexistence. Footsteps made their presence known as a boy, looking barely in his teens and wearing a black hoodie with a coattail added by the waist, a pair of grassy military cargo pants and a sky blue shirt suddenly appeared out of the empty night sky. His skin was pale, his eyes a reflective silvery-blue and what little of his hair could be seen was as gray as the moon. The newcomer smiled slyly before taking off the hood, revealing a golden highlight going all the way down to his back and stepped closer to the two forms.

"You can shut the beacon off now, Liedxabel," the ghastly boy said, his voice smooth and crystalline, filled with emotion and mystery despite its monotony. He looked toward the unconscious girl by the boulder, at her ragged yet calm breathing, her impure golden hair which curtained a pure face devoid of the terrors of the eternal War between Light and Darkness, he took in every detail of the child he could see and more, yet her Mind and memories were a mystery to him. "Can't think of a healing spell?" he asked without taking his eyes off of the girl. Liedxabel, the Cloaked Woman, uncovered her head, revealing her dark skin and jet black hair to the world her emerald eyes hiding behind manifested sunglasses despite the night.

"The few I know are incapable of healing her internal damage," she answered, "not unless I exhaust myself, which is not an option we can take." She looked at her one friend for a single second before fixing her gaze back at the girl, the boy behind her raising a glowing hand to the air. With a snap, the glow on the boy's hand turned green and a powerful Curaja spell washed over the unconscious girl, clearing her body of all wounds. Just after the spells petals vanished into the dark of the night, the girl shifted into a more comfortable position, her mind slowly awakening from the trauma she witnessed.

"Have you sealed the Keyhole?" Liedxabel asked, her gaze never shifting from the resting form before her. To her surprise, the mysterious boy laughed, an act which would've sent a chill up her spine had her heart been there at the moment. Curious and annoyed, she turned to the boy with a stone stare. "I take it that's a yes?"

"Found the thing years ago," the boy said with a large grin before turning his gaze to the spot where the sleeping girl's world used to be, "Sealed it exactly when the barrier broke." At those words, the cloaked woman gave him a quizzical look before turning back to the girl.

"Was the door open beforehand?"

"If it was, I would've been late," the boy chuckled, dismissing his Keyblade with a snap of his pale fingers and turning to Liedxabel. "No, the main Door, along with all of the artificial ones, are closed. The only ones who can open them now are the one who made them and this world, and they reside both on the other side, with the World's core, and within some guy whose heart is tuned to the Chaos," he rests his chin on his left palm, "though I guess he could open a gateway there if he wanted to.

"Anyway," he continued with his chillingly calm glee, "the Barrier was broken by force, the focus of which was this girl." He gestured toward the resting figure before turning to the sky, again at the empty spot. "As for why, when all previous brute force attempts at going through the Barrier left it unscathed, that may as well be the biggest mystery anywhere."

"Do you think the Heartless have something to do with it?" The empty woman asked, walking up to him. She also looked to where the star had been, her face as stiff as stone in terms of emotions.

"Not in the way you'd think, considering that the Barrier was reinforced with an ever-shifting cloud of Light and Darkness. Every time they tried to get through it by digging through the Dark areas, the Light right behind them would restore their heart and send them to their own world, if it still exists." The boy looked back at the unconscious girl with a sad look in his eyes. "I'm surprised she ended up here, though." He turned to Liedxabel, who met his gaze with another quizzical one. "Normally, those who survived their World's destruction and are not turned into Summon Crystals arrive at Traverse Town, where they can at least make a new life for themselves among those who suffered similar losses. This girl, however," he again turned to the alluded girl, "arrived here."

"I'll admit," Liedxabel agreed moments later, returning to her position beside the girl, "that is the strangest thing about all of this."

"Exactly!" the boy proclaimed, his jacket exchanging itself for an actual black robe with crystalline blue lining as he walks up to the two.

"But answering the obvious question won't help us get closer to the answer of the bigger, less obvious question." Her eyes sharpened as she once again looked to the stars, the vast emptiness greeting her with its never-ending mysteries.

"Why are the Heartless resurging?" the boy asked with only half an effort and a bored expression. He looked one last time at the unmoving girl, taking in her now calm expression. With a sigh, he bent down to fix the girl's messed up hair, a soft pink glow enveloping both his hands and the blonde's clothes, repairing them as best as he could manage. Content with his work, yet unsmiling at the circumstances, the boy stood.

"If only they'd just stay away, right, Lied?" The boy asked right as a rather sharp dagger dug into his head, revealing his crystalline nature as cracks spiderwebbed their way across the surface. He grabbed his head in pain as another figure, this one none human, made her presence known.

Her fur was as white as milk and her eyes as red as blood with a splotch of blue in the middle, a soft glow emitting from them and reflecting off of her white and silver hair, which reach, at its lowest point, just below her shoulder and parted at its left side and atop which rested two long ears, the right one bent forward and the left one facing to the side. Her body was tall, slim and fit, her chest and bum decently grown, her legs long and slightly muscled, and her tail fluffy and frazzled, almost misty looking. She wore a long green and white dress, its skirt sown with a top stitch pleat. In her right hand was a dagger, exactly like the one she embedded into the ghostly boy's crystalized head, above which a brass bracelet with a single ruby hung loosely.

"Took you long enough," the boy said through pained breaths. The newcomer looked at him with seemingly empty eyes before pointing at the slowly awakening figure on the ground. Confused at first, the boy pulled out the source of his pain with a crystalline chime before responding to her silent question. "Yes, she's the one I told you about, Vai." He stood to his full height, standing just below the rabbit girl as she approached the group with sad, tired eyes.

"How old?" Vai asked, her expression unchanging as she placed her hand to the girl's forehead. In a flash, the girl's thoughts flooded her as she opened a link she had made moments before appearing, bringing an unseen joy to her eyes, the only part of her face many thought changed.

"Just thirteen, according to my dusks," Liedxabel explained, her expression turning grim. She turned to Vai, who stayed crouched beside the girl as life slowly came back to her. The hollow woman took note of the Darkness surrounding Vai as she riled the child's mind from its dreamless slumber. "How are you faring at the moment, Vainilla? Is your own darkness threatening you?" Vainilla, who was too busy with the girl in yellow to look away, simply shook her head, the Dark aura enveloping her vanishing into her.

"If it did, I wouldn't be here offering to take her home, to save her world." She stood up to her nearly two meter height and took a few steps closer to the lake. There, she sat down and motioned for the others to do the same, which only Liedxabel obliged.

"Someone needs to be ready, in case the Heartless arrive," the cloaked boy reasoned as he leaned on the boulder. They stared at each other, two beings of darkness, one pure, the other not, and one of nothingness, for half a minute before the boy broke the silence. "How are you going to do it?" the rabbit girl looked at him, confused at the question. "How are you going to bring her world back from the Darkness? And how are you going to find the material to reconstruct it?" the rabbit girl giggled, causing the boy to turn an irritated shade of red. "Hey!"

"You don't know how it works, don't you?" Vainilla asked, already knowing the answer. Stopping the boy before he could answer, she turned her focus to the slowly waking girl and said, "Riley, time to wake up."


End file.
